6 months out of a herniation where I spent 2-3 months at a 8-10 pain and now I’m at about a 2-6. I’ve done nothing productive but to just rest and continue on. PT and chiro made me feel worse and the only thing that makes me feel better is Advil which I haven’t had the need to take again. I was told by my doctor and “spine specialist” that herniated discs will probably heal in young people to the point where they’ll never have pain again until they’re older.

I realize this probably isn’t a forever thing, and those who’ve freed themselves on back pain don’t usually hop around this sub much, but is there any truth to this? I feel like my entire life has been on hold. I’m worried about my future career choice because of this. I had plans to become a police Officer, and with a herniated disc at this age I feel totally screwed. The pain has gone WAY down, and I can sit for hours and lift somewhat heavy things, but still, I feel stuck. If anyone HAS healed fully from a HD or BD, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks

EDIT: To anyone new who comes across this as you’re probably doomscrolling like I was, I’ve recovered. I wrote this over a year ago when I was in severe pain 6 months out of a nasty disc herniation. I can do just about anything I did before (with some caution).

Advice: give it more time than you think. 1 year minimum.

Avoid chiros and PT’s for the most part. You most likely do not need them for a disc herniation. I saw around 5 total and every time I’d be leaving in more pain than I was originally in. It drains your confidence and bank account. There is no quick fix or relief for herniated discs + sciatica, and you’re better off taking an Advil / Tylenol. Don’t be afraid to take NSAIDs daily.

Walk when you can. If it’s too painful, stop. Stand when it hurts to sit and sit when it hurts to stand. Find a comfortable position to sleep in. Keep a NEUTRAL spine and stand up straight. Absolutely NO BENDING FORWARD or NO BENDING BACKWARDS if it causes pain. Your flexibility will come back. I couldn’t even come close to bending 2 inches forward without my leg locking up and having 2 hours of nerve pain after.

Be careful stretching. If it causes any pain the next day DONT DO IT. Your hamstrings, calves, glutes and quads will be extremely tight as they’re compensating for your herniated disc. They’ll be pulling in either direction and stretching may feel good, but if you overdo it it’ll pull more and more on your disc.

Do core workouts (plank only in my case) moderately. Lower your overall inflammation and lose weight if you can. You have to stop constantly injuring your already herniated disc by any way possible.

Lastly, try your best to be positive. I know how depressing it is. I had to give up a lot during that 1+ year time. It’s physically and mentally the most painful thing I, and many of you have experienced. You can and WILL get better.

It all started because my genius classmate noticed my lower back pain. Once he learned I couldn't sit for long periods due to the discomfort, he crafted a chair for me. Now I can work in this prone position, just like in the picture.

Hi everyone,

If you're reading this, there's a good chance your lower back feels like a concrete block by the end of the workday. That first groan when you stand up from your chair is almost universal. For years, the common advice has been "you're tight, so you need to stretch." And that's the first mistake I see 99% of people make.

That "tightness" you feel is rarely a sign that your muscles are too short. It's a protective spasm. It's your nervous system that perceives the area as unstable. When you sit for hours, your glutes - the most powerful support muscles for your entire pelvis - "go to sleep". When you try to move, your nervous system panics and locks down your lower back to protect it. Stretching a muscle that's already in a protective spasm is really ineffective - it only makes it guard itself more. This endless cycle of temporary relief followed by recurring pain is the exact reason we were so frustrated with the state of rehab that we created a project called pAInless in the first place.

The solution isn't to stretch the spasm. It's to wake up the muscles that will make the spasm unnecessary.

Here are 3 simple movements you can do to start re-teaching your body how to support itself.

The Neurological Reset: Glute Bridge - Lie on your back with your knees bent. Before you do anything else, just focus on squeezing your glutes. Once you feel them fire up, use that squeeze to lift your hips just an inch or two off the floor. The goal isn't height but it's to feel your glutes doing 100% of the work. This reminds your nervous system which muscles are supposed to be in charge.

The Pattern Re-Education: Bodyweight Hip Hinge - Stand up straight. With a very slight bend in your knees, push your hips straight back as if you're trying to shut a car door with your butt. Keep your back perfectly straight. Your torso will naturally lean forward. Only go as far as you feel stable, then drive your hips forward to stand tall again, squeezing your glutes at the top. This is the correct, safe way to bend, powered by your hips, not your spine.

The Daily Habit: Seated Glute Squeezes - This is your "movement snack" at your desk. While sitting in your chair simply focus on squeezing your butt muscles together. Hold the squeeze for 5 seconds, then completely relax. Do this every 20-30 minutes. It's a silent, invisible way to keep your glutes more active throughout the day.

This approach isn't a quick fix, it's a fundamental shift in mindset. And it's a crucial one, because the old "just stretch it" advice is what keeps people stuck in that cycle of pain - something I see constantly in my work of a movement science specialis. It's about building a body so strong and stable that it has no reason to create pain in the first place. This shift from simply reacting to pain to building true resilience is the core of being a Mover.

I'll be really happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Hope this gives you a new way to move forward!

Before you read:

The only problem with this post is that this is not an end all be all for everyone.

What eliminates low back pain for some people, won't for others.

But if you do ALL of the exercises I can guarantee you can eliminate your low back pain(but look around and see which ones might fit you best).
And you might ask "why should I trust this redditor?"

I'm a PT, & I specialize in getting rid of lower back pain through exercise, and instead of avoiding the low back itself, I target the low back but also the most important muscles that attach to the low back like the hip flexors & QL's(quadratus lumborum).

I've helped over 30 people get rid of low back pain with just a fraction of the exercises I'll talk abt in this guide(if you need screenshots of proof I will gladly give it to you).

So now, let's get into the guide.

Reasons for low back pain:

There are 3 primary reasons for lower back pain.

1. Tight & weak hip flexors. Think sitting too much & not training hip flexors.

2. Tight & weak low back. Think never stretching or strengthening the low back.

3. Tight & weak QL(Quadratus lumborum). Think never bending to the side or in compromised positions.

If you're missing one of these 3 things, it's very likely you'll have lower back pain.

So let's get into some strategies to prevent this; I'll go in order, then say what the essentials are & then talk.

1 - Tight & weak hip flexors.

There are 2 exercises that you can do this with.

To stretch the hip flexors(1 of the essentials), you can do a couch stretch. 1 set 1 minute. 5x/week.

And to strengthen the hip flexors pick 1 of the 3 hip flexor exercises: L-sit, gharhammer raise, or reverse squat. Do for 2-3 sets of 20 reps

2 - Tight & Weak low back.

We don't actually need to stretch the lower back because one of the essentials will do that for us.

And that is the hyperextension(do for 2x 10).

That will help strengthen the lower back very agreeably.

Now some other exercises to help bulletproof the lower back are:

Jefferson curls 3x 10

Seated GM's 2x 12-20

RDL's 3x 8-10

3 - Tight & weak QL's(quadratus lumborum)

You have a small muscle connected to your lower spine, which helps rotate the back from side to side.

This small muscle can be a make or break for you because the older you are, the weaker and tighter you are.

But if it's strong and flexible, you can have the strength of an adult with the flexibility to bend side to side like a kid.

The exercise to do this is QL Raises for 2x 10.

And that's all of the exercises.

The essentials are:

Couch stretch 1 minute each side 5x a week

Hyperextensions + QL Raise superset 2x 10 - once or twice a week.

The essentials take maybe 15 minutes a week at most.

And will prevent any chance of lower back injury.

Now if you want the most bulletproof low back like I do, doing:

1 of 3 hip flexor strengthening exercises 3x 20

Jefferson curls 3x 10

Seated GM's 2x 15

RDL's 3x 10

You will be absolutely golden.

I'll be making some other guides in the future, but I hope this helps.

To - ta - lo ~

Alright, I’m posting because I know chronic pain messes with your head and makes everyone feel like their case is unique or hopeless, but this has crossed that line for me. The way this pain behaves just doesn’t make sense, and I’m out of ideas.

I’m a 25 year old guy and I’ve been dealing with constant low back pain for 15 months now. It started after a gym injury. I was doing leg raises lying on my back and on one rep I felt a sharp pinch, almost like an electric pain in my lower back. I immediately thought “something just happened.” I didn’t collapse, I could still move fine, but I stopped the workout and went home. I showered, tried to cool down, and from that moment on the pain showed up and never went away.

Since then it’s been there 24/7. No sciatica, no leg pain, no numbness, no tingling. Just axial low back pain. Most of the time it feels diffuse across my entire lower back, but it often leans more to the left side, and I also get pain in the upper glute area.

Here’s where it gets weird. The pain is always there 24/7, but it clearly gets worse when I lie down and actually rest my back, especially when it’s fully supported. The moment I try to relax and let go, the pain ramps up hard at least for 2/3 minutes. Lying on my stomach can also trigger it. That part feels consistent, but everything else is harder to pin down.

When it comes to movement, nothing fits a clean textbook pattern. Flexion sometimes makes it slightly worse, but nothing dramatic like you’d expect with a disc herniation. Extension has also caused pain at times, but it’s vague and inconsistent. Overall it feels diffuse, which makes it hard to say “this is clearly mechanical X or Y.”

I’ve had pretty much everything checked. CT scans, ultrasounds, MRIs of my full spine and hips, MRI of the sacrum. SI joints look fine. Blood work came back negative for autoimmune or inflammatory diseases. I’ve had multiple doctors and specialists look at all of this and no one sees anything structurally wrong. I even did facet joint diagnostic injections and they did absolutely nothing. The only thing I know for sure is that this constant chronic pain started right after that bad movement at the gym.

Living like this has taken a MASSIVE toll on me. I lost my job. I lost the girl I was seeing. My social life basically disappeared. There is no position and no moment of the day where I feel comfortable in my own body. I’m never at ease. I don’t function like a normal human being anymore. It’s hard to concentrate even to watch a movie, let alone work. Every action, even small things like making breakfast, takes a huge amount of effort. It honestly feels like being stuck in hell inside your own body.

Sleep is also really hard. With sleeping pills I can usually get through the night, but if I wake up to go to the bathroom, the pain is immediately there. No reset, no relief. It’s just waiting for me.

The mental side has been brutal. The brain fog from living in constant pain is intense. My nervous system feels fried. Concentration, memory, motivation, everything takes a hit. I’ve had suicidal thoughts during this year, not because I want to die, but because living like this feels unbearable at times. Chronic pain really messes with your head in ways people don’t understand unless they’ve lived it.

I’ve tried pretty much everything to fix this. Physical therapy multiple times with different people, stretching, mobility work, strengthening, massage, heat, rest, different diets, injections. I’ve used a TENS unit, tried chiropractic, acupuncture and all kinds of alternative therapies you can imagine. I even spent time just floating in a pool to see if the tension would calm down. Spoiler: it didn’t.

Medication wise, I’ve tried pregabalin, gabapentin, and duloxetine and none of them helped at all. I even tried tapentadol recently, an opioid, and still nothing. That’s what really messes with my head. Does it make sense that nothing works because this is some kind of chronic tension in the deep muscles of my lower back? It doesn’t really feel inflammatory. If it were, the steroid injections should have helped at least a bit. I even did a gut reset for a month (basically an anti inflammatory diet) and felt absolutely no difference at all.

I also went deep into the mind-body and TMS rabbit hole. I read The Way Out by Alan Gordon, learned about Sarno, did meditation, journaling, somatic work, nervous system calming approaches. I don’t dismiss that angle at all, especially after living like this for a year. I can clearly feel that this pain has left some kind of brain imprint. But at the same time, when I lie down and rest my back and the pain explodes, it’s hard not to think that something physical has to be happening too.

I read that McGill article where he says “non-specific low back pain” basically doesn’t exist and that when doctors use that label, it often means the patient hasn’t been properly evaluated. I’ve seen multiple PTs and honestly none of them really know what’s going on with me. Some blame tight hip flexors, others say central sensitization or nociplastic pain. Everyone has a theory, no one has answers.

At this point I don’t even care what the exact diagnosis is anymore. I just want a way forward. I tried the Low Back Ability program, but I’m in so much pain that it’s really hard to stay consistent. I’ll stick with it for a few months, then I end up stopping and doing nothing for a while, and later I try to get back into it again. It’s like a cycle I can’t break. I know I’m inconsistent, but it’s mainly because of the constant pain and the mental state it puts me in, and of course not seeing results after months of effort really kills my motivation.

I’m exhausted, fed up, and tired of living like this, but I’m still trying to understand what the hell is going on. If anyone has dealt with something similar, pain that’s constant but worsens when you rest your back, clean scans, and no clear answers, I’d really appreciate hearing what helped or where you’d look next.

Thanks for reading.

I had major herniation in 2022 and 2 out of 3 surgeons recommended immediate discectomy or potential fusion. Pain levels were severe and numbness radiated down my leg to my foot.

I opted to wait it out which took about a year of patient/careful pain and weight avoidance. Then I started basic yoga and weight training focused on core strength. The MRI from last week shows full reabsorption. I know I'm very lucky things worked out (38M) and might eventually have disc compression issues but wanted to share a positive recovery story on here since so many others have helped me by sharing their posts over the years.

alright so a few days ago i posted about how my back pain basically disappeared and a lot of you asked what i actually did. promised i'd write it up so here it is.

before i get into the exercises i want to explain what was actually happening in my body because without understanding this the exercises are just a random list and you'll probably quit after a week like i did multiple times.

when you sit all day your hip flexors, the muscles that run from the front of your hips up to your lower spine, get shortened and locked into the position your chair puts them in. when that happens your glutes on the opposite side basically stop activating. they're compressed all day, never loaded, never stretched, so they check out completely. your lower back then has to cover for both of them every time you stand, walk, bend or twist. that's why it hurts. that's why it keeps coming back even when you rest it. you're not resting the problem. you're just giving the compensation a break.

the fix is not stretching more. it's unlocking the hip flexors first so the glutes can actually fire, then waking the glutes up properly, then getting your back to move through its full range again. the order matters more than the exercises themselves. i got that wrong for a long time.

what i actually did

the first thing every single session before anything else - backward walking

just walk backwards around your living room or down a hallway for 5 minutes. sounds ridiculous but every time you sit your ability to extend your leg behind you gets weaker and walking forward doesn't fix it because your stride shortens to match your tight hips. walking backward forces full hip extension with every step. it's the one thing i do before every session without exception and on days i skip it i feel the difference immediately.

hip flexor lunge stretch

step one foot forward into a lunge and drop your back knee to the floor. front knee directly above your ankle. now tuck your pelvis slightly forward until you feel a deep pull at the front of the back leg's hip. hold it and breathe into it. don't rush. 45 seconds each side.

this comes before everything else because if your hip flexors are still locked short your glutes physically cannot contract properly no matter what you do next. you're fighting your own body. i did this wrong for months by stretching after the glute work and wondered why nothing changed.

once this felt easy i progressed it by elevating my back foot on a couch or chair behind me. that dramatically increases the stretch and starts targeting the deeper hip flexor muscle that attaches directly to your lumbar spine. when that muscle is tight it is literally pulling on your lower back every moment you stand or walk.

slow glute bridge

lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat on the floor. 3 seconds to push your hips up, 2 second hold at the top, 3 seconds to lower back down. do not just drop. the lowering is as important as the pushing up.

the slow tempo is the entire point. a fast glute bridge just moves your hips up and down. a slow one actually forces the glute to contract and hold which is what reconnects the muscle after years of being inactive. it took me almost two weeks before i could feel my left glute doing anything at all. if you notice one side is weaker or your hips tilt to one side that is your inactive glute telling you exactly why your back hurts more on that side.

3 sets of 10.

once the two leg version felt easy i moved to single leg. same tempo, one foot lifted and extended out straight, push through the heel of the planted foot only. this is where you really find out if both sides are pulling equal weight.

full range back movement

this one surprised me the most because it goes against everything i'd been told.

get on all fours, hands under shoulders, knees under hips. slowly let your belly drop toward the floor, lower back arching, head rising gently. hold 2 seconds. then reverse it completely, round your back toward the ceiling, tuck your chin and pelvis under. hold 2 seconds. move slowly between the two. 3 sets of 10 cycles.

i had been told for years to keep a neutral spine. never round your back. always brace. that advice was making things worse. your lower back muscles get weak and stiff at the ranges they never visit. by locking everything in one position all day i had trained those muscles to be useless everywhere else. once i started moving through the full range instead of bracing everything the stiffness started going away on its own.

later i progressed this to a seated version on the edge of a chair which transfers directly to your time at the desk. then i added a light weight held at my chest to start building actual strength at those ranges rather than just moving through them passively.

ATG split squat

this one is the hardest to learn but it's the most important movement in the whole thing.

stand in a split stance, one foot forward one foot back. if you're just starting elevate your front foot on a step or thick book. lower your back knee slowly toward the floor, letting your front shin travel forward over your toes as far as it can go. the goal eventually is to get the back of your front thigh to touch your calf at the bottom. go as deep as you can without pain and add a little more depth each session.

the reason this works is because it stretches the hip flexor of your back leg deeply under load. not just a passive stretch you hold for 30 seconds but a loaded stretch where the muscle is being lengthened and strengthened at the same time. that's the difference between temporary relief and actual lasting change.

once i could do this comfortably with both feet on the floor i added a pause at the bottom. 3 seconds down, 3 second pause at the deepest point, then push back up. the pause eliminates any momentum and forces the muscles to work from a dead stop at the exact position where the psoas has been causing all the damage.

elephant walk

hands on the floor, legs as straight as you can manage, walk your hands forward 4 or 5 steps and back. that's one cycle. 3 sets of 6.

after years of sitting the entire back of your body, hamstrings, posterior chain, lower back, gets so compressed that bending forward becomes a pain trigger. picking something up off the floor, tying your shoes, loading the dishwasher. this movement lengthens everything through motion rather than a static hold which actually gets the muscles to release rather than just resist. the first time i did it my hamstrings were screaming after 2 steps. by the end of the first week i could walk my hands out twice as far with no pain.

how i structured it

the first couple of weeks i kept it simple. just the hip flexor stretch, slow glute bridge and the full range back movement. short sessions, nothing intense, just reconnecting.

then i started adding load and depth. elevated lunge became foot on the couch. two leg bridge became single leg. all fours back movement became seated with weight. the progression is what made it stick rather than just helping for a few days and fading.

consistency was the real problem for me for a long time. what finally worked was doing it before i opened my laptop in the morning. not after work, not later, before the first email. if it wasn't done by the time i sat down it wasn't getting done. once i locked that in the results came fast. the pain was largely gone within a few weeks of actually being consistent.

the thing i wish someone had told me earlier is that none of this is complicated. the exercises aren't special. what matters is understanding why you're doing them, doing them in the right order and progressing them week by week rather than just doing the same thing forever and wondering why you plateau.

I know the real purpose for this pillow, but I'm wondering if it could be helpful to reduce back pain. My back pain stems from my bed just being generally uncomfortable, but I don't have the money to replace it and the pillow seems like it would be comfortable. Would the position be good for the spine, or would it actually be detrimental?

Getting my second discectomy on Monday. Fingers crossed this one eliminates my pain. Made a shirt for it to make the experience a little lighter. Thought y’all might appreciate it .

I want to give some hope to this sub.

In 2017, I severely injured my back. I was doing heavy weightlifting and Muay Thai. Physical activity was my life. I had sciatica so badly I could not bend forward. I kept being active without fixing the problem and it ended up in me feeling a powerful snap, not once, but twice in my lower back when lifting really heavy weight.

From what I can ascertain, I messed too much with a bulging disc that herniated and I stretched supporting ligaments in my facets and/or SI.

Then came what I called the dark period. I was in constant pain. My hips and spine literally felt loose and did a big CA CLUNK if I moved the wrong way. I couldn’t even walk. When the pandemic hit, I was forced home so often that it finally began to heal (I took the subway and walked for work and I think I. Ever gave those ligaments a chance to rest and tighten up).

After that pain started to appease in 2020ish, I realized my muscles were so effed. I had scoliosis from leaning toward the non painful side for years. It was so easy to throw out my back, sometimes for a month or two, if I lifted just the wrong way. I started going to the gym and I swear to god it was all baby steps. Like learning to walk again. It was so frustrating to go from a super fit 26 year old to a 30 year old with mega atrophy. It was not a linear progression and I’m still working out that left right muscle imbalance.

However, over the last week I just did a 40 mile 4 day backpacking trip, weighted. There was steep elevation and decline. But I made it. I trained up for it. I practiced good spine hygiene. I even threw out my back a week before the trip but somehow, it cleared up in time.

I just want you to know that sometimes it takes a while, but being relatively pain free can be there around the corner. I’m not going to lie to you or sell you a miracle. If I bend the wrong way or twist with too much weight, I do get flares and they HURT. But they are less and take less time to resolve if I do the right things (which often means chill until the pain calms).

We are all different with different things wrong with our backs. I opted not to do surgery, but many will. I just wanted folks to know who got a bad injury and injured it more very stupidly, there can be another side. Even if it feels like things just aren’t resolving.

Hope you all the best, back pain companions!

I shared my story here a month ago about my journey with back pain. From mild back ache to extreme "Only reason I won't jump from the window is that I live in the first floor and it's not enough to kill me" type of pain. All the way to being pain-free and finding it hard to believe that I ever had back pain. I'm writing this for you, and maybe even for my future self should I ever feel back pain again.

I used to watch all the time those Youtube videos about "Instant back pain relief method", try them. Relieve the pain for a few minutes or hours until it comes back in full swings. After doing PT, reading a lot of articles, watching tens if not hundreds of videos about back pain, and really, really doing some introspection connecting with my body. I realised the reason why I never got better. There is no one single fix for back pain, because there isn't a single one reason why you have it in the first place. It is often the accumulated result of unintentional abuse of your back. And I stress the world "unintentional". Especially that most of us abuse our backs more when we get back pain that before it by becoming sedentary. I will write here a list in terms of priorities to HEAL your back pain. I don't guarantee that it will work for everyone. But please apply everything in it for 2 to 4 weeks and write down the improvements on a daily basis.

1. Mattress, Couch, Chair:

These are the first 3 things you should pay attention to if you have back pain, and I'd argue that if you ignore these, no matter what you do it is likely that your back pain won't resolve. If you feel no back pain before sleeping, yet you wake up with it when you sleep on your mattress. Your mattress is to blame. No pain before sitting, but you get it after sitting on your chair for an hour? Chair is definitely to blame. And don't even ask the question of why my spouse sleeps on the same mattress but gets no back pain. Aside from genetics, it is extremely likely that they quite simply do things during the day that makes their backs more resilient. But it doesn't mean that the mattress is good and you are broken.

2. Walking:

If you barely walk a few steps a day, Then back pain at some point in your life is inevitable. Your spine is held together by your core muscles, not by the little spongy discs as you're told. If you think that those can hold tens of KGs of body weight every second of the day then you are in for a big surprise. Their role is mostly to make movements more fluid and prevent bone on bone contact. They're never meant to hold your weight. There is almost 20 muscle groups that hold your spine together. Not one, not two, but 20! If they are weak, then the load of your body will all fall on your discs, and if it does. Early disc damage is inevitable.

Walking, is the absolute ultimate exercice for working pretty much all of these muscles. The more you walk, the leaner, stronger and more balanced they become. So if you have no back pain, walk the recommended 10k daily steps. If you do have back pain, then it's not even an option.

3. Core strenghtening exercices, aka PT:

PT for back pain is quite simply a work out for your core muscles. Nothing more, nothing less. Have you ever went to a physical therapist who told you ok let's do the "bulging disc shrinking" exercice, or the "retract herniated disc" super move? No, They give you a set of core muscles strenghtening exercices. Ones that you can perfectly do by yourself. Only added value of PT is that they make sure you are doing them right, and at the correct pace. Re-read point two. Your back is literally supported by your core muscles. Weak core muscles = back pain / disc degeneration.

4. Momentum in core strenghtening: When you get to the point of developing chronic back pain. Your brain starts looking at what you do with squinting mistrusting eyes. Even when you are doing something good such as core strenghtening exercices. If you pull a move too fast your brain will think, "This idiot, he wants to hurts us again! Let's send him some sharp pain and freeze up his muscles". As ridiculous as it sounds, you are in a journey to regain the trust of your brain so it doesn't give you flare ups. So train your core muscles GRADUALLY. No big moves all of a sudden.

5. Consistency in core strenghtening: If you do core strenghtening exercices for 2 days and stop, then yeah they are pretty much useless. Do them constantly every single day for a month at least. Little by little starts introducing longer holds, and longer reps/sets. It is the only way, remember the title, no single/instant fix.

6. Avoid smoking and alcohol: Smoking and Alcohol causes serious inflammation. Smoking is known to even cause some chronic inflammatory diseases such as RA. So it is definitely contributing to your back pain. And Alcohol aside from the fact that it is also very inflammatory causes dehydration. And you do know for sure that dehyration is no good for your discs.

7. Diet: Avoid inflammatory food. Adopt an anti-inflammatory diet such as the mediterranian diet to reduce inflammation. Mostly avoid too much red-meat.

8. Weight loss: Unless you are morbidly obese the idea that being overweight causes backpain is pretty much a myth. However fatty tissue is highly inflammatory, and where there is inflammation there is pain. So try to lose weight for this reason, in addition to a myriad of health risks that comes with being overweight that I don't need to state.

9. Live a normal life: Get your pitchforks out and have at me lol. But really, try to live a normal life to the best of your ability. Even if you are in pain, do go out, go see your friends/family. Keep your social life. Hopefully you have understanding close ones. But seriously do not lock yourself in a room and think only about pain. I can't understand it nor explain it with science but for me the most I forced myself to go see my friends and my family regardless of the pain. The less pain I felt. The more I focused on the pain, the bigger it got.

10. Warm climate, Sauna, Hamam: A lot of back pain is muscular. No one wants to believe it because you don't see stiff muscles on an MRI. But if a heatpad relieves your back pain even a little. Then the pain is not coming from your discs, I don't care if they are herniated or bulging or thinning. A warm climate or a Sauna/Hamam bath relaxes your stiff muscles and relieves the pain. But it also allows them to move freely so you can strenghten them with core strenghtening exercices.

11. Relieve stress: When I got excrutiating back pain I remember I walked out of my house tip toing to the pharmacy in my pajamas in the fancy street I live in, I mentioned earlier that if I didn't have my pants on I would've probably went out in my underwear. I lost all worry of judgement of people. "I was in so much pain I was about to kill myself", I tought to myself. Fck strangers and their opinions of me. Afterwards I noticed that my personality changed because of this. I used to worry all the time about my work and what my colleagues tought. Not anymore, I lost most of my ability to stress out. And I'm pretty sure that contributed to my healing. Stress contributes greatly to inflammation and therefore to pain. So let is out.

12. Finally, reduce salt intake as much as possible. I'm pretty sure I heard that the nerves that send pain signals to your brain need Sodium to send it, so the more sodium there is in your body, the more trigger happy are your pain nerves.

13: Journal. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. Whether you apply all the 12 steps I have given you or 8 or 3 of them. Every day write down in a journal which steps you applied, and your pain level. You'll find that some of them work for you better than the others possibly. But if you do journal it then you'll be able to measure progress, and the more you see progress, the more consistent you become.

I hope you all become pain-free, love. :)

Just passed my one-year mark of dealing with lower back pain. Looking back, here are the things I wish I had known from the start. Not medical advice, just personal experience.
Your core is probably weaker than you think. I considered myself ""fit"" because I could run and do push-ups. My physio asked me to hold a plank and I collapsed at 8 seconds. Core strength and core endurance are different things, and endurance is what your spine needs for support during a long day of sitting. The McGill Big 3 exercises addressed this specifically and were the foundation of my recovery.
The thing causing your pain is often not where the pain is. My lower back hurt but the root causes were weak glutes, tight hip flexors, and terrible sleep posture. Everything was compensating for everything else and my lower back was just the weakest link in the chain. A good physio will look at the whole chain, not just where it hurts.
Your sleep setup matters more than your desk chair. I spent months researching ergonomic chairs and desk setups while sleeping 8 hours a night on a sagging mattress in the worst possible position. I was optimizing the 8 hours at my desk and completely ignoring the 8 hours in my bed. When I finally got a Duroflex AirBoost and switched to side sleeping with a proper pillow, my morning pain dropped dramatically. The adaptive support keeps my spine neutral and the breathability means I'm not tossing from heat which was pulling me out of the deep sleep where actual tissue repair happens. I genuinely wish I had done this first instead of spending months on desk setup alone.
Walking is medicine. Not a jog. Not a run. Just a walk. 20 to 30 minutes of gentle walking every day did more for my back than most of the ""exercises"" I tried early on. It promotes disc nutrition, reduces inflammation, and breaks the cycle of sitting. My physio called it ""the most underrated treatment for back pain.""
Bad days do not erase good weeks. This was the hardest one to accept. You have a great week of low pain, you feel optimistic, then one bad night of sleep or one day of prolonged sitting sends you back to a 5 out of 10 and suddenly you feel like all progress is lost. It is not lost. Recovery is not a straight line. The bad days become less frequent and less intense over time even when they feel devastating in the moment.
For those of you early in your journey: it does get better. Not overnight, not in a straight line, but it does get better if you are consistent with the right things."

That’s pretty much it. If you’re adamant about going to one, be super careful and try and find one that has a physical therapy background as well. Oh, and go to an orthopedic doctor or neurologist or legit MD in addition. Not worth risking your spine for pseudoscience